Boots in, Lawrence Jr. back

The unofficial results of Tuesday night’s (April 2) election produced one (somewhat) new councilman for the city of Moberly, and brought back a familiar face to the panel.

Dick Boots took the overall vote by 0.56 percent (or seven votes) over council incumbent Herb Lawrence Jr. (27.29 vs. 26.73), who also retained his seat on the council, as there were to be two seated in this election cycle. Per prior council minutes, it is worth noting that Boots served on the Moberly City council from “April 16, 2001-April 13, 2012.”

Coming in third in this year’s race was incumbent Don Burton, who lost out to Lawrence Jr., by 30 votes ( 2.41 percent).

James D. Harlan, who also ran for council last year, received 255 votes, for 20.53 percent of the vote.

There were four write-in votes, which tallied 1.13 percent of those cast on Tuesday.

A total of 1,242 votes were cast in Tuesday’s council election.

Interestingly enough (though, not necessarily a surprising turn of events), the incumbents both took a surprising lead early on in the election process, with Burton (33.71 percent) winning the absentee submissions by over six percent on Lawrence Jr.

Boots came in third, absentee-wise.

Boots built his lead, however, by taking small wins in Moberly’s first ward (plus-five votes on Lawrence, plus-18 on Burton), in the second and third precincts of the city’s second ward (plus-six on Burton, and plus-10 on Lawrence), and in the third ward’s second and third precincts (plus-13 on Lawrence, plus-22 on Harlan, and plus-26 on Burton).

Lawrence Jr. handily won precincts one in Moberly wards two and three (with 31.45 percent of the vote).

In an odd result, both Lawrence and Harlan took ward four’s precincts one and two with 26.4 percent of the vote, while both Burton and Boots tied with 21.6 percent of the vote in that same voting area. There were five additional write-ins in those precincts.

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